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No Twins or Expos?

Baseball's labor contract expired at midnight Wednesday, and talks about shrinking the major leagues appear likely to get caught up in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.

Baseball owners want to eliminate financially weak teams that took a large share of the $160 million in revenue-sharing money that is being transferred from the large markets to the small markets this year.

Commissioner Bud Selig said the two teams to be eliminated would be determined later, but other owners have said Montreal and Minnesota were the primary choices.

There is little support among baseball owners to remain in Montreal, which averaged just 7,648 spectators per game at Olympic Stadium last season. Minnesota contended for much of the season and averaged 22,287 and drew 1.78 million. The 730,000 increase from 2000 was the highest in the AL.

Selig, who introduced the contraction resolution at Tuesday's meeting in Rosemont, Ill., backed the last expansion, which added Arizona and Tampa Bay in 1998. "It seems to me that expansion was overdone, says former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent.

The eyes of college basketball will be on Texas Tech when the season starts. No comeback will be as closely scrutinized as Bob Knight's at Texas Tech. "There's a very positive apprehension about how we're going to do," Knight said. "I mean, you're really looking forward to it, and you're looking forward to taking these guys totally unacquainted with what you're doing and seeing them develop as a team."

There's no doubt about Knight's ability to win games - it's his behavior that has raised concern. But the coach with a history of sideline tantrums and physical confrontations with players is being welcomed by the Red Raiders. "What happened in the past is in the past," Texas Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said. "I am his boss. I am his friend. I think we can deal with both of those roles. I don't anticipate any incidents, or any thrown chairs."